I am the magic maker in my child’s life. I don’t make Halloween costumes but I will source whatever I can to help my kid’s vision happen. I am Santa’s right hand Mom at Christmas, btw #fuckelfontheshelf. I said what I said. I am ToothFairy stealth extraordinaire when the loose ones finally let go. I get up at the ass crack of dawn on Easter morning and pray to whomever is listening that my child will remain asleep long enough for me to hide the eggs. So when I heard murmurings a few years ago online about a new leveling up of St. Patrick’s Day involving leprechauns sneaking into your house to wreak havoc and leave treats my stomach dropped. My eyes rolled. My stress levels rose. I wanted to throat punch whomever came up with this ridiculous idea that involved parents doing EVEN MORE magic making for a level 2 holiday. We’re not even talking level 1 here like said above holidays.

Fast forward a few years and we are now navigating the perils of public school…first grade to be exact. Sure enough, in the days leading up to Thursday my child was talking about the leprechauns. She wanted to build a leprechaun trap at school. On the Monday before she was given a toy gold coin at one of her after school activities instead of a sticker. That’s cool, I thought to myself, something different is always nice. Until she ended up losing said coin and obsessed over finding it because she was going to use it in her leprechaun trap. In her mind this was the only suitable bait because it looked like gold and we all know how this ended. She ended up making the trap without the coin.

I saw how this would go. I didn’t know what her teacher did or didn’t have planned. I could tell that kids were getting excited about the upcoming day of leprechaun fuckery. Do schools even talk about the origin of this day anymore or have we just bypassed that uncomfortable piece of history and replaced it with this? Thank god we had two days of no school on Tuesday and Wednesday to defray some of the excitement. School resumed on Thursday the 16th and she came home telling me all about the trap that she had made. I did my best to support her efforts. It sounded like she put a lot of effort into making it and I told her as much. “I don’t know sweetie, those leprechauns are pretty good at not getting caught” was my message of caution. Sure enough on Friday afternoon there were tears at pickup. No leprechaun. I did what I could to console her. Reiterating again my message that those little creatures are really good at not getting caught.

I appreciate that her teacher made the magic happen with age appropriate fuckery in the classroom. Apparently glitter was dispersed. Shamrock necklaces & green rainbow erasures were left at desks. But the leprechaun trap remained untouched. Thank you teacher for doing something. Though quite frankly I have mixed feelings about perpetuating more unrealistic expectations amongst children and one more holiday. Parents are exhausted. I do what I do and I draw the line at doing more. Fourth of July is quickly turning into my favorite holiday. All I have to do is grill some hotdogs and show up for someone else’s magical fireworks display with a blanket.